Currency speculators had a busy time in the week to last Tuesday with many position adjustments occuring all resulting in a net reduction of long dollar positions to the lowest level in a month, according to the latest data from the US Commodity Futures and Trading Commission. The net long dollar position versus eight IMM currency futures were reduced by 4.6 billion dollars to 10.3 billion as selling of AUD, MXN and CAD were off-set by the buying of EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD and CHF.
It was a very difficult week as major reversals in positions happened to all currencies apart from Canadian dollar where buyers continue to seek some additional exposure to high oil prices. The NZD and especially the AUD and MXN suffered sharp corrections as long positions was scaled back by one third and two thirds respectively.
Speculators have now more than halved their short exposure to the EUR since its peak on January 24. Last week thy bought 16.4k EUR contracts thereby reducing the net short position to the lowest level since November 15. The short JPY position were also scaled back as profit taking emerged following a month long sell off. Similar strong buying was seen in GBP and to a lesser extent on CHF.
For a full run down of charts and additional information please click here: FX CFTC_032412
Ole Hansen,
SAXO BANK